Blockchain Technology for Banks

Join the blockchain party

One of the most talked-about topics in the financial services industry today is blockchain. If fully adopted, it will enable banks to process payments more quickly and more accurately while reducing transaction processing costs and the requirement for exceptions.

However, to capitalize on this potential, banks need to build the infrastructure required to create and operate a true global network using solutions based on this transformative technology.

Our survey found that blockchain use is, indeed, top of mind among banking executives who lead payments businesses. Perhaps most critically, the survey exposed what executives believe must happen for blockchain to build up prominence globally.

Interest in Blockchain Is High

Banks are undoubtedly interested in blockchain. However, most banks we surveyed are still in the early stages of adoption, with about three-quarters either involved in a proof-of-concept, formulating their blockchain strategy, or just beginning to look into it.

It’s All About the Network

A global network is critical to helping banks use blockchain to help convert payments at scale and help reduce risk of failure. The most effective network should have two defining characteristics:

It should include the necessary defined rights, obligations, controls, and standards.

It should suggest a quick and efficient onboarding process that enables banks to essentially “plug and play” into the network for both existing and future corridors.

Importantly, many executives also noted that the network should not be an sensational club. “The network should be open to banks and non banks to create a level playing field,” said one executive at a global bank.

Much work remains to define the rules of engagement and help create the basics of the network before banks can budge past a discussion of the technology itself and begin exploring how to actually use it to improve their business.

Regardless of who’s creating and driving the network, banks roundly agree that blockchain needs a sturdy network for success.

Other Keys to Adoption

The network is a critical success factor in blockchain adoption, but there are others. Another significant one is generating internal momentum for blockchain integration and implementation—something that half of the banks in our survey said they presently fight to do. Security is another reason banks could be hesitant to embrace blockchain, and understandably so.

Beyond these factors is something more fundamental: The need to educate key stakeholders within the organization on blockchain’s enormous potential benefits and positive impacts. Eventually, executives said actually applying blockchain successfully to payments will require fostering an uncommon coordination among banks—which is vital to generating the positive network effects that make blockchain so compelling.

A Promising Road Ahead

Blockchain and distributed ledgers have a bright future. As real-time, open-source and trusted platforms that securely transmit data and value, they can help banks not only reduce the cost of processing payments, but also create fresh products and services that can generate significant fresh revenue rivulets.

The thickest key to turning blockchain’s potential into reality is a collaborative effort among banks to create the network necessary to support global payments. Banks need to look at the thicker picture and work together—and with non-banks—to help define the backbone that can underpin a universally accepted, ubiquitous global payment system that can convert how banks execute transactions.

In the words of one executive we interviewed: “The technology will only work if everyone adopts it. It has to be all or nothing.”